Spots by activity:

Bars

Our favorite Prague local bars, cafes and pubs with and without wireless internet. This is where Prague locals lounge and go out for a beer, wine, cocktails and other drinks… Prague insider tips: always up-to-date!

Having a beer pub in the neighbourhood, where they have one of the largest selections of beers on tap in Prague + a beer shop next door can be quite dangerous (and money consuming). Especially if it is on your way home :-).

Zlý časy literally means “bad times” but trust me, you’ll always have a good time there :-). If you like beer and different beer styles, you can find them all there – lagers, wheat beers, IPA, EPA…mostly from Czech (micro)breweries and some specials from abroad.

Three floors (=three bars), 48 taps in total (the selection of beer is if course changing regularly) + a selection of bottled beer from all around the world – that’s certainly worth a visit. If you want to eat something with your beer, I can recommend the classic “pub” snacks like a pickled camembert-type cheese, pork knee or ribs.

And one good thing – the place is totally non-smoking (after a poll taken among visitors). The pub can be quite crowded, so it is better to make a reservation, especially if you are with more than two.

P.S. If you want to buy some bottled beer, go next door to Pivkupectví shop which belongs to Zlý časy.

Café v Lese, which means “in the woods“, is located far from any forest, on the increasingly popular Krymská st. in a building with a fascinating history. As the owner of the bar (who looks suspiciously like one of the thieves from Home Alone) proudly admits, the same building housed the first Prague brothel which had hot running water. Pretty cool,right?

Not unlike the rest of Krymská, which is probably the most well-known street in this part of town, V lese serves as sort of a meeting place for people mostly from the Vršovice and Vinohrady neighbourhoods. From concerts, theatre plays, and talk shows, to flea markets and discussions, the idea is to provide a common meeting area for people to network, brainstorm and create.

Established in 2010 in the space left behind after one of the Shakespeare and sons bookstores closed (read about the other here), V Lese is decorated in a retro 70s style with dingy furniture and stuffed animals on the walls. I know that might sound a bit kitschy but when you see it, you’ll really feel like you are inside some unkempt cottage in the middle of the woods. Aside from offering a decently priced Regent beer and an alternating selection from microbreweries, I also thoroughly enjoy their homemade lemonade.

And if you are a fan of modern Czechoslovak history, you should visit the bar just for the possibility of bumping into Vratislav Brabenec, member of the influential Plastic People of The Universe, who is one of the local patrons.

Lately, I seem to enjoy bars and cafes whose concept is centred around paying an homage to some nostalgic long gone epoch. And just down the street from my apartment, on Mánesova, lies one of these super cool places, that have the power to immediately transport you back in time (and I don’t mean the creepy viking/medieval restaurant where they have nothing but meat and beer). Kaaba pays its respects to the early sixties, one of the most fruitful periods for design in this country, following the Expo 58 in Brussels, where the Czechoslovak pavilion was met with a roaring success.

Entering Kaaba, I cannot help smiling as I gaze at the retro pastel-colored furniture, geometric shapes on the ceilings and the various plastic objects scattered around the room. In a way it resembles an american-style diner, but there is something inherently local about it too, like entering your grandparents’ living room from when they were young.

Kaaba offers a variety of coffees and teas, Žatec beer, several wines, as well as little snacks, baguettes and salads. The atmosphere is extremely appealing as you sit on the zebra-print chairs at the round colourful tables and strain your neck to notice all of the little details that make this place special. In the left part of the cafe there’s even a modest tobacco stand, which sells newspapers and magazines from around the world. Groovy indeed.

Located in the Old Town, just a few minutes from the tourists boulevards full of “Czech Drinking Team” hoodies and Soviet matryoshka salesmen, not more than five minutes from the Charles Bridge, Hemingway Bar is a gem to be treasured. It’s a venue with an atmosphere, which is upscale, but not posh, classy yet unpretentious.

For me it’s a place to visit to reward myself and celebrate the little victories that need celebrating, even if sometimes they have to be made up simply to justify a visit to Hemingway. Perhaps it is this “occasionality” and “specialness” which make this cocktail bar so dear to me, although it could just as well be the combination of great drinks, attentive staff, and stylish surroundings.

Inspired by Ernest Hemingway, the famous writer, alcohol connoisseur, and cocktail innovator, the bar specializes on his favourite spirits – absinth, rum, and champagne. And much like the main character from Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, you will be teleported to the past, with leather Freudian couches, dim candlelit atmosphere, and images of the old white-bearded man nodding approvingly from the framed photographs on the walls.

My personal favorites are the cocktails, which are innovative both in its contents and packaging, whether it’s a Caipirinha in a massive glass jam jar with a lid or a bottle hidden inside one of Hemingway’s classic novels. I can guarantee you will want to stay there for hours or, if your wallet scream otherwise, you can continue to Café Atmosphere right across the street.

Do you know the difference between a weak burger and a burger that has strength? Well this gentleman does. And if you go to The Tavern so will you. In the past few months Prague has been going through somewhat of a hamburger craze. And while listening to a vegetarian rating a burger joint might seem as rational as asking Ron Swanson to judge a salad bar, this is a place I am not ashamed to suggest, mainly because they also carry two awesome veggie burgers.

The Tavern is located at right at edge of Vinohrady and Žižkov, right next to Riegerovy Sady. It’s modest, cozy, and usually quite packed, so it’s good to make a reservation beforehand, especially since they have only opened the doors to public in 2012 and are still in a beta-testing mode, with limited opening hours – Tuesdays (17:00-22:00) and Wednesdays to Saturdays (11:30-22:00).

From my carnivore friends, I have heard nothing but praise about their Tower of Power and Blue Smoke burgers, for myself I can heartily recommend the Urban Garden and Spinach Bean bomb, centered around a lentil/mushroom and spinach/bean patty, respectively. To go along with it, one might recommend the Ježek beer (hedgehog in Czech) or the Easy Rider, a special American pale ale. When you are done, take a stroll into the nearby Riegerovy sady (check the Riegerovy Sady article), sit down on a bench with the best view of the Prague Castle (my favorite at least) and enjoy some quiet digesting time.